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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Alison Howard, Emeritus Professor Barry Hirst
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Studies have highlighted the relevance of extracellular glycine and serine in supporting high growth rates of rapidly proliferating tumours. The present study analysed the role of the specific glycine transporter GLYT1 in supplying glycine to cancer cells and maintaining cell proliferation. GLYT1 knockdown in the rapidly proliferating tumour cell lines A549 and HT29 reduced the number of viable cells by approximately 30% and the replication rate presented a decrease of about 50% when compared to cells transfected with control siRNA. In contrast, when compared to control, GLYT1 siRNA had only a minimal effect on cell number of the slowly proliferating tumour cell line A498, reducing the number of viable cells by 7% and no significant difference was observed when analysing the replication rate between GLYT1 knockdown and control group. When utilising a specific GLYT1 inhibitor, ALX-5407, the doubling time of rapidly proliferating cells increased by about 8 h presenting a significant reduction in the number of viable cells after 96 h treatment when compared to untreated cells. Therefore, these results suggest that GLYT1 is required to maintain high proliferation rates in rapidly proliferating cancer cells and encourage further investigation of GLYT1 as a possible target in a novel therapeutic approach.
Author(s): Bierhals CG, Howard A, Hirst BH
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Biomedicines
Year: 2021
Volume: 9
Issue: 12
Online publication date: 25/11/2021
Acceptance date: 21/11/2021
Date deposited: 03/12/2021
ISSN (electronic): 2227-9059
Publisher: MDPI
URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9121770
DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines9121770
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